Self-Disclosure and Moroccan EFL Learners’ Writing Development: Effects on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

Mohsine Jebbour

doi:10.17323/jle.2021.8620

Abstract

This article addressed the relationship between students’ self-disclosure—that is, sharing social and positive information—and writing development in the English language classroom. The pre-test-post-test research design was adopted to assess whether students’ reflections on personal positive experiences including feelings and opinions help improve their writing output as measured by complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The participants, drawn from a convenience sample, were 15 Moroccan students enrolled in the department of English studies at a Moroccan university. These participants were included to establish a homogenous level of English proficiency in writing. The participants completed a pre-test, six positive self-disclosure topics, and a post-test. A paired-sample t-test was computed to determine if a significant mean difference existed between the pre- and post-tests. Although the descriptive statistics suggest that the learners showed relative improvement in complex and fluent language, their overall writing development did not reach a statistically significant difference level. Although differing writing prompts and learners’ academic learning experiences influenced the overall findings, this study contributes to the debate about the role of self-disclosure activities in improving certain language components in writing and calls for developing study programs that consider students’ personal lives in language arts classes.

Highlights

In departments of English studies in Morocco, many courses require students to show their work through writing, a widely used vehicle for these learners to practice and enhance language skills in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context (Birhan, 2018; McDonough & Fuentes, 2015)
The measures adopted to assess writing development in the participants’ pre- and post-tests were complexity: counting the number of clauses per T-unit (C/T)–a T-unit refers to an independent clause and its dependent clauses (Barrot & Gabinete, 2019, p. 4), accuracy: counting the number of error-free T-units per T-unit (EFT/T), and fluency: calculating the number of words per T-unit (W/T)
Descriptive statistics revealed that the participants’ production of complex and fluent language improved after the treatment, the main findings indicated that the learners’ writing development did not reach a statistically significant difference in terms of complexity (C/T), accuracy (EFT/T), and fluency (W/T)

Summary

Introduction

In departments of English studies in Morocco, many courses require students to show their work through writing, a widely used vehicle for these learners to practice and enhance language skills in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context (Birhan, 2018; McDonough & Fuentes, 2015). Students’ reflections on personal disclosures—including feelings, opinions, and experiences—are anchored to language learning theory, second language (L2) motivation, language teaching methodology, and writing pedagogy (for more information, see Jebbour, 2020). This inclusion supports this study’s objective to consider the relationship between self-disclosure and language development in writing. Reflecting on self-disclosures can support learners’ writing performances, in that writing about personal information fosters engagement in the task, increases the proportion of topic-relevant main clauses, allows students to pay close attention to language form, and provides access to well-known information (Bento, 1991; Dörnyei, 1994; Foster & Skehan, 1996; Guilloteaux & Dörnyei, 2008; Skehan & Foster, 1997). “as students incorporate this understanding and awareness into their own writing, their writing performance, the complexity [, accuracy] and fluency of their essays, will improve” (Barrot, 2018, p. 188)

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Discussion

Conclusion